


Scenario Liars

by tieria



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Developing Relationship, M/M, POV Alternating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-05-31 17:16:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15124178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tieria/pseuds/tieria
Summary: With nowhere to return home, a boy makes the choice to be brave.As long as he has his place, a boy cares not for the scorn of his classmates.(Or: A different child finds their way into Hanoi's good graces, and another tumbles into the back of Kusanagi Shoichi's van, those fateful days. They find meaning, in that.)





	1. The Hero of A Tragedy

**Author's Note:**

> Vrains Week Day 2: Change of Heart
> 
> This was both really fun to play around with and /really/ hard to make work but hopefully it's at least a little interesting??
> 
>  
> 
> _"There's not a single thing I want." ___

No one could find his family. No one knew where he belonged. In a world where he remembered nothing, he was completely and utterly alone. No kind words could hide the bleakness of  _ no one is coming to bring you home. _

A hospital room, too white. Too sterile. Too lonely. Yusaku couldn’t stay here. But no one was coming to get him. No one could find his family. And yet he had to belong  _ somewhere. _ Even though all Yusaku could do was clutch tight to the certainty of his own name, even if no one could find it, there must have been a place for him to belong. 

And it was then that he thought-  _ they _ must know. Even if no one else in the world knew where he had come from,  _ they _ must. Yusaku clung to that with complete and utter certainty. If they had taken him, then they’d know where to bring him home to.

All he had to do was find his way back. If he could just do that, Yusaku thought, sneaking through the dimmed halls, pushing his way through doors left just slightly ajar, then he’d know everything. The place from which they’d been rescued wasn’t far- he’d been tired, and scared, and unable to speak, but he hadn’t forgotten the way back. He’d just have to be brave, be strong, and find his way home.

 

For a very long time, at the very last place in the world that he wanted to be, Yusaku waited. There was no way to keep track of time save the advance of the dark clouds overhead and the chill of the wind soaking into his bones- and then the clouds turned to rain and the wind turned him numb to his fingertips and toes, and then even those measures were lost to him.

He was deep in thought, head falling forwards and eyelids drooping, debating whether to give in and letting sleep take him or to fight a little longer for wakefulness when he caught sight of sudden motion- too big for an animal, too consistent to be the wind. A moment of stillness even amongst the pouring rain- and then from the misty dark of the forest did a boy appear.

Yusaku scrambled to his feet, clutching his hands tight into fists and trying to act strong. As if he hadn’t just been curled up in the corner and shivering, taking shelter in the last place he wanted to be.

“What’s your name?” said the boy. Calmly, softly. A voice that would soothe him, if it wasn’t coming from someone here and now. “Can you tell me?”

But he wasn’t here for questions. He was here for answers. So he lifted his chin and faced the boy and said, proud of the way his voice barely shook, “I want to know where my family is.”

The boy’s answer was slow. Hesitant. “What’s your name?”

“Fujiki Yusaku.” The one thing he knew. The one thing he couldn’t let go.

The boy looked over his shoulder. In the shadows lurked a woman, red hair bright in the shadows, caught beneath the sheen of her plastic umbrella. Her eyes were shaded, her head downwards turned. She hesitated, and Yusaku knew that look all too well. It was the only kind he’d seen since they’d taken him to the hospital.

Yusaku took a step back, but there was nowhere to go- his back hit hard against the concrete wall, and it left him trapped when the boy stepped beneath the overhang with him, reaching out a hand for his face.

“I’m sorry.”

Yusaku tried to bat his hands away, but he didn’t have the strength- he couldn’t be hurt again. He couldn’t lose any more, he couldn’t let them take him again, he couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t-

But the boy didn’t hurt him. He wrapped the crying Yusaku up in a hug instead and said, over and over, until the words stopped making sense to the both of them- “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Yusaku hated the tears. He hadn’t cried in what felt like a whole lifetime. Not when he’d realized that no one would be coming to rescue them. Not when the voice had spoken to him like a message from the heavens. Not when someone had finally come to rescue him. Then, his only thought had been a shallow, dull-  _ oh. The fighting is done. _

He hadn’t thought he could cry. 

Finally, Yusaku asked, hiccuping his way through the words- “What are you sorry for?”

“I should have gotten you out faster. I should have given you more things. I shouldn’t have- I mean, I should have helped you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

_ Hey, you. _

The quiet voice. The hopeful voice. Yusaku had recognized it, but only now did he truly understand. He sniffled, but already did he feel better. “You did help me.”

The look the boy gave him as he drew then was something that Yusaku couldn’t describe. It was relieved. It was powerful. It was something like hope. And the boy said, then- “If you don’t have a place to go, will you come with me? I’ll make you a place. I promise. I’ll do that for you, so I promise-“

He didn’t even have time to finish his sentence before Yusaku nodded.

Ryoken was a kind person. That was the first thing Yusaku realized about him, lead away by the hand and into a small car, driven by a strange man whose gaze on him was harsh. He shouldn’t be doing this. He wasn’t supposed to go with strangers- but everyone was strange, and Ryoken was kind. Perhaps he wasn’t supposed to, perhaps he should have learned- but he had nowhere else to turn, and so he went.

 

It didn’t take him long to understand the kind of people that came in and out of the tense house. They watched him warily, and he watched them nervous in turn. No one would say what they thought, and Yusaku clung to Ryoken as reassurance for all the things that the adults meant when their gazes on him lingered a moment too long. 

But he had come here. He had chosen to come back, and that meant he needed to be brave. It was just hard, Yusaku thought, when the rush of a memory best left forgotten crashed over him like a wave the first time he caught Aso holding a deck of cards. 

It had been a normal day, up until then. Yusaku had finally talked himself into his courage, into exploring the rest of the new home-  _ his _ new home- by himself. And then he’d stumbled into the living room, into Aso shuffling through a set of duel monsters cards- and Yusaku had frozen, unsure of what to do until Aso had turned and noticed him there. His eyes went wide- maybe even wide as Yusaku’s own. He stood slowly, approached with nothing but gentleness that Yusaku wouldn’t trust.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” said Aso with a shake of his head. “Things weren’t supposed to end this way, Yusaku. Can you believe that for us?”

With his words, it was as if the spell had broken. Yusaku skittered backwards, pressed his back up against the glass of the windows, eyes darting about for the escape. He wasn’t there. He wasn’t there, and he knew it- but still did Yusaku bolt fast for the door.

He could get it open if he tried, Yusaku was sure of it. The lock wasn’t so high he couldn’t reach it on tiptoe. He could get out, he could go back, he could still, could still-

A hand on his wrist just as he reached for the doorknob. Yusaku whirled on his captor, jerking his hand back and expecting to be met with the solid bulk of Aso, of the adults- but instead found a boy staring at him with wide eyes, a mirror to Yusaku’s own panic. For a single, heaving breath, Yusaku forgot he was supposed to struggle.

“They’re sorry,” Ryoken said, grasping onto Yusaku’s hand and holding it tight, “They’re sorry. They’ll never hurt you again, I promise.”

And Yusaku wanted to believe him. Because Ryoken never lied. Ryoken had always convinced him to be strong. But they’d hurt him. They’d stolen him away, and when he’d returned there had nowhere to go back to.

“I promise,” Ryoken said, and squeezed his hand. Then, much softer, “Please don’t go.”

He was scared, still. He didn’t know if he could still trust them. He didn’t know how he possibly could, not a single one of them. Not even Ryoken.

But if he left, would there be anything left for him if he tried to come back?

The fear still fluttering about him like a bird beating against his ribs told him clear as day- he couldn’t allow that. He couldn’t take that chance, because then he’d really have no place to return.

“I’m not going to go,” Yusaku replied. The look on Ryoken’s face was so terribly lonely, and that, if nothing else, was something that Yusaku could repay- for saving him, for giving him the courage to go on, and for this, now.

And Ryoken, suddenly, smiled. “Good. Good, Yusaku. You can belong here, I promise. No one is going to hurt you. I promise.”

Yusaku didn’t know about that, but it was impossible to think that Ryoken was lying, not when he seemed this relieved. So Yusaku would just have to trust him. 

He could do that, Yusaku thought, letting Ryoken pull him back into the living room, where Aso still stood, deck of cards clutched tightly in his hand. Maybe it would be hard, but he could do it.

“Aso,” said Ryoken, pulling Yusaku so that the two of them stood before him, Aso’s gaze on Ryoken and Yusaku’s firmly on Aso, wondering if there was anything about this man he could believe in, “will you tell us a story?”

“Aren’t… Okay,” said Aso, glancing between them with a pained look, different from the ones that the nurses in the hospital had turned on them, “Sit down, and I’ll tell you anything you want to hear.”

 

And they didn’t hurt him. If anything, they treated him with far too much kindness- more than Yusaku had thought was possible in the world, let alone from just three people. He stopped shying away from their touch. He let Aso ruffle though his hair and held Kyoko’s hand when she took them to the grocery store, and cornered Genome in the corners of the hall with Ryoken in a bid to get him to teach them something preferably illegal or otherwise scandalous. He only gave in half the time, but when he did, Ryoken assured him, it was worth it.

And, thought Yusaku, fleeing from Genome’s wrath after they’d knocked over one of his empty glasses with a clatter and apology yelled over their shoulders, it  _ was _ worth it.

Aso and Kyoko took them out for picnics, he played whatever games he pleased with Ryoken after their lessons, getting chalk dust on their fingers and scrapes on their knees, and ate Genome’s desserts out of the fridge just to see how long it would take him to notice.

Yusaku thought that he’d never been so happy in his life- and then Kogami came back to the house. Yusaku hid behind Ryoken, peeking out from his back as medical equipment was shuffled in and out of their home, as the adults spoke in hushed tones about things that still made such little sense to Yusaku then. He simply knew he didn’t like them, not one word.

The parlor ceased being places for tag, for afternoon lessons, for time together with people whose stories were bright and lively and always entertaining, where people made all their mistakes right and everyone got to live happily ever after.

It became a heavy place that could never descend into silence.

Ryoken was a lot more serious, after that. 

“This is my mistake to fix, Yusaku,” Ryoken said, thirteen years old and ready to take the burdens of the world up upon his shoulders. The Ignises, the Cyberse, the start of a final gambit that they didn’t yet know would be half a decade in the making. Their suffering, their guilt- all of it, for nothing. But Ryoken called their meeting that day  _ destiny. _ Perhaps, Yusaku thought, eleven years old and determined to no longer be so powerless, this was a kind of destiny too.

“You saved me,” Yusaku said, unwilling to be denied, “You saved me twice. I’m going to help you. No matter what.”

Ryoken would end it all. He would fight, and win, and set things right, because the Ignises were born of dueling and there wasn’t a person in the world stronger than Ryoken at Duel Monsters. But Yusaku wouldn’t let him go alone. Not when this might be what finally brought them peace- five years of scars, finally come to a close. 

“Thank you, Yusaku,” said Ryoken, flashing him a small smile. Yusaku returned it gladly.

“You don’t have to thank me. You couldn’t stop me.”

And Ryoken, for the first time in a very long while, laughed. Just once, not quite happily- but it was still a laugh. “I’m still going to thank you.”

_ Well, _ thought Yusaku, feeling the heavy weight of a duel disk on his wrist for the first time in a very long time and preparing himself to jump into the network for the very first time-  _ that’s fine, too. _

 

But the fight became a search. Five years of tedium, of progress clawed away in slivers and scraps from the trail of a single, troublemaking Ignis that had made off with a world in its sights. Yusaku learned quickly, those long days they spent with little to show for it- he had a sense for the network, and a knack for materializing what he wanted from lines of code, but even that sort of support wasn’t enough. Not alone, at least. Together they made progress, slight as it might have been.

And the moment they came closest- when finally,  _ finally _ Yusaku thought it might end, the Ignis was snatched away from their grasp. Not by SOL, their eventual enemies, but by a third party, a strange newcomer who’d been making trouble for the low-lives who’d made their way into the grunts assembled to cover the tracks of their real activities in LINK VRAINS.

Long hair, pale gold over his shoulders. Blue clothes, so pale they might as well have been white. Beautiful, delicate wings, feathered out behind him. When Yusaku looked closer, he realized they were made out of stone, carved painstaking from marble. Whoever had programmed those, they’d taken great care.

_ Spectre. _

Yusaku wondered if he’d created them himself, or if that support of his cared enough to code something so beautiful for him. But he couldn’t let himself get distracted. He was here to observe Ryoken’s duel, to support him silent from the sidelines, and nothing more.

And yet again and again was his attention drawn to Spectre’s side of the field, to his monsters, blooming as the sunlight fell across their petals, a delicate contrast to the dark Ignis on his arm. A jolt ran through Yusaku with each of them he summoned- a sign of the Cyberse. Of their enemies.

Yusaku had never had the chance to observe him up close, before. He hovered now at the very edge of Ryoken’s cage of gold and rose, watching from around the thorn of a rose. The two of them were evenly matched, especially after Spectre regained the use of his Cyberse. And especially after he said something so interesting- words that sent a jolt through all of them, calling to something that hung over their heads and ahead in their sights.

_ A duel hasn’t meant this much since that Incident. _

“What do you want with the Incident?” Ryoken asked, taking a step forwards so as not to take one back. They hadn’t anticipated this. No one should know, unless, just as he’d implied-

And to that, the angel replied- “What I want isn’t the question. If I’d had my way, I would never have let them take me away.”

Ryoken’s shoulders tensed as he leaned forwards at Spectre’s declaration. “You can’t possibly-”

“But that isn’t what I’m here for now. My time has been moving forwards ever since the day I first woke up in one of those white rooms. I can’t go back now.”

“So why are you here? Why defend that Ignis?”

Spectre tucked a piece of long hair back behind his ear. When he glanced up to meet Ryoken’s gaze, the look in his eyes was terrifyingly cold. “I’m here to deliver revenge. On behalf of the ones who suffered.”

And  _ ah, _ Yusaku thought, a jolt of something painful clawing its way through his chest, shredding his breath and seizing tight around his heart. In another world, Spectre could have been fighting for him, too.

An avenging angel. 

One that dueled without hesitation. One that had no fear when he touched those cards, reminders of days that Yusaku had been trying a decade to overcome. He fought as all of them did- certain of their victory. A bullet, a sword, an impregnable shield. They’d lost the data that kept Blue Angel in her coma, and quietly Yusaku was relieved. He’d never liked that part of the plan, no matter how necessary he knew it was.

But Ryoken had lost. 

What that meant- for their future, for their plans, for the world- Yusaku didn’t know. He could only do as he’d always done- stand by Ryoken’s side, his sword and shield and whatever could be of use. 

_ Spectre, _ mouthed Yusaku, rolling the syllables over his lips _. _ That wasn’t a name he’d forget. Ryoken logged out, but Yusaku lingered just a moment before doing the same. Spectre seemed to be bickering with that Ignis of his, the dark thing so unsuited to that angel radiating marble light. 

But it seemed he’d overstayed his welcome. Spectre’s gaze flashed up towards him, and Yusaku logged out, leaving behind not a trace. No need to be caught prying where he no longer belonged. And besides- that was a duel he’d need to prepare for carefully. When the time came to defend his place, he wouldn’t-  _ couldn’t- _ lose. Not to someone who would destroy his everything.

 

When he asked, blinking awake in the parlor to the familiar beat of a heart monitor, Ryoken seemed troubled. There were only five people left in the world that avatar could have belonged to, and it was clear that Ryoken knew which one. In his guilt, he’d forgotten none of them. In his mission, he’d shoved all but one aside. Yusaku knew that perhaps better than even Ryoken himself.

“I don’t know his name,” Ryoken said, shaking his head and pacing to the windows, letting the steady beeps fill his silence. Yusaku waited, because he knew the answer would come. But when it did, it wasn’t directed at him. Instead, it was spoken to someone far away, beyond the glittering sea. “But of all of them… Why  _ him?” _


	2. A Deceitful Scenario Liar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I don't have any need for friends._

There was a boy in his room. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone here, now that the bustle of nurses and doctors and orphanage workers had given way to the familiar silence of the night in a sterile white room. Spectre had been enjoying it, really- until the door squeaked open, spilling harsh yellow light from the hall to break into the moonlight filtering through the window. Spectre squinted against it, at the silhouette closing the door behind them.

There was a boy in his room. Tired. Probably restless. Probably bored as Spectre himself, staring and trying to figure out why the boy was here. He forced out through a throat dry with disuse- “Who are you?”

The boy hopped up into the chair beside Spectre’s bed, hooking his feet up to sit cross-legged, perched perilous atop it. He replied, nonchalant, “Shoichi. Kusanagi Shoichi, but just call me that.”

Spectre straightened up in his bed. He didn’t know what this strange boy wanted from him, and the adults buzzing around him all day had done no good. “Why are you here? You’re not supposed to be here.”

Shoichi kicked his feet off the chair to sit normally. They tapped lightly against the ground, too-loud in the silent room. He said, affecting calm, “They kicked me out of my brother's room. He’s not doing so good.”

Spectre hardly cared. None of that explained what he wanted to know. “But why are you here?”

“‘Cuz if I go down to the lobby they’re gonna go find my parents and send me home. And I’m not going. Not when Jin is still here.”

Ah, foolishly admirable. Spectre had no idea and no desire to find out, but he supposed that sort of dedication to a family was correct. “Well, you woke me up.”

He hadn’t, but Shoichi hardly needed to know. As long as he left Spectre well enough alone, like everyone else, then that would be enough. Shoichi frowned, but he didn’t leave. He only leaned forwards in his chair, the old joints of it squeaking at the sudden motion and said, “Yeah, well, sorry. But now that you’re awake we can talk, right?”

“I have nothing to talk to you about.” He rarely ever did. Not with anyone who would respond in human words, at least- he had much to tell his mother tree, when they met again.

Shoichi crossed his arms. He made no move to leave, and Spectre got the sinking sense he was stuck with him. “Hey.”

“ _Yes?”_

“Can you tell me what it was like? The Incident. What did they do to you? Because no one’s gonna tell me. And I want to know what happened to Jin.”

If that was the answer, then Spectre would be happy to share those six months of purpose. For the first time since he’d left that room he spoke with life, spilling six months of dueling, of pain that proved his usefulness, of a life cut just short of paradise.

And as Spectre spoke so brightly, Shoichi’s expression fell bit by bit, crumbling into something fearsome and strong.

“What’s wrong?” Spectre asked at the end of his story- the hospital staff, the police, the orphanage workers had all seemed so mundanely appalled at his story. Perhaps this Shoichi was the same- too old, too loved to understand what had let Spectre live with such brilliance. But what left him, finally, wasn’t pity.

“I’m gonna find whoever hurt you and my brother,” said Shoichi with a darkly determined stare, “and I’m going to make them pay.”

 

Spectre never forgot that boy, that strange Shoichi who’d come into his room in the dark to speak such incomprehensible words as revenge. He’d obviously cared for that brother of his quite a bit. What that meant- what any of it meant, Spectre didn’t know. The days passed without so much as another sight of him; declared slightly malnourished but otherwise in good health, Spectre was released and spirited away back to the dull pace of his ordinary life.

School was the same as the orphanage, a battle with loneliness that Spectre knew he had no hope of winning. There was no point in it; more days than not Spectre snuck out at lunch to creep to the woods and climb up into the branches of his tree, to rest in its hollows and read stories of faraway places- where the hated became heroes. Where the outcasts became the revered. A change of date. A passing fantasy.

She was his beginning and his end, and the woods his home. So long as he had her welcoming presence, he needed nothing else. Not friends, not family, not a single person in this world. Scorn became his second nature- revel in it, throw it back in turns.

They wouldn’t know- they couldn’t. He wouldn’t let them. After so many years of being barred from telling his secret, he’d guard it now with his life.

Only his mother tree could know.

And yet. Foolish adults. Their foolish reasons. A tree stump left like a badge of honor for the ones that had felled it.

 _Ah,_ Spectre thought, and let his last attachments to the world crumble like ash between splayed fingers. There was nothing left.

Not even tears to cry.

(But that boy had reached out for his hand- had offered him purpose, no matter how unwanted.)

Revenge wasn’t the same thing as understanding. There wasn’t, after all, a person in the world who could do that. But perhaps it could be something. He cared not for things so trifling, but here was no place to belong.

Spectre slipped from the orphanage, backpack in one hand and list curled tight in the other. There were only so many Kusanagi Shoichis in Japan, and even less that fell into the right age range. Fewer still those with a brother named Jin.

He would find them. He would see what had become of that dark boy and the broken brother. And if they no longer needed him, if their invitation was no longer open, then-

Well.

He no longer had any attachments.

 

“Did you ever manage to take your revenge?”

“What? Wait. How… How did you even find me?” Shoichi asked, staring down at Spectre bewildered from the service window of his food truck. The summer was drawing towards its end; gathered in this lovely plaza were students enjoying the mild last days of freedom as salarymen flit between them, out of the office for lunch.

“It wasn’t particularly difficult,” Spectre replied, because that sounded far better than _trial and error._

“No, that’s not-“ Shoichi shook his head. He looked Spectre over again, at the dirty remnants of a useless life gathered up on his back, and said instead- “Have you eaten, yet?”

Spectre shook his head. “I’m not unused to hunger.”

“That’s-“ Shoichi shook his head again, expression clearly distressed.

 _Ah,_ Spectre thought. He had been referring to his missed lunches, money instead saved for traveling in order to get him here. Clearly Shoichi thought now he was still reminded of those lovely days almost a decade past.

“Here, just- just wait a second,” Shoichi said, and vanished from view a moment. The back door of the van swung open, and Shoichi poked his head out, waving Spectre in. “I have some seats in here. I’ll get you something to eat, and then-“

“My question still stands,” Spectre interrupted, unwilling to waste time on someone of no worth to him. If _Kusanagi Shoichi_ proved useless, then perhaps his next destination would be the remains of that facility, of whatever remained of the best days of his life. “Have you taken your revenge?”

Shoichi flashed him an incomprehensible look, exasperated and frustrated and bewildered all at once. He glanced around the wide plaza, at the dispersing remnants of the lunch crowd, and ushered Spectre inside again. “Listen, let’s just discuss this inside, okay?”

Left with no other choice, Spectre slipped around the truck and stepped inside. Shoichi closed the door behind them, and the service window followed just a moment later. It was surprisingly spacious; instead of a full kitchen most of the interior was taken up by a row of computer terminals. As promised Shoichi pulled out one of the chairs, then handed him a hot dog and drink not two minutes later, finishing preparations with practiced ease. The flattop switched off, tools placed careful in the sink with a quiet clatter. Shoichi pulled off his apron and draped it over the back of a chair that he pulled out to sit before Spectre.

He asked, leaning forwards with such a fretful sort of concern- “Really. How did you find me? We met once when we were just kids. I couldn’t dig up anything in you, but…”

 _Your brother and I are protected. You are not._ But he wouldn’t reveal his methods so easily. Not before he knew.

“If you aren’t going to answer my questions, then I’ll leave,” Spectre said, half declaration and half threat. His food still sat untouched on the countertop.

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Shoichi replied, leaning forwards in his seat, expression falling into something serious. An echo of the darkness Spectre had seen that day in the hospital room. Spectre knew what he answer would be even before he said the word. “No. I haven’t. Not yet.”

“Ah. Then that brother of yours…”

“Hasn’t recovered.” Such grave words. So many unspoken threats lurking just below the surface of them. Pain. Discontent.

Spectre, resisting the urge to smile, reached for his food. “Then I’d like to see him.”

 

Kusanagi Shoichi was stubbornly protective, but Spectre had long since mastered the art of twisting his words to get his way. Neither fists nor duels would be an appropriate weapon here- so words it became. Promises that Jin would benefit from contact with someone who had struggled all the same. Hints that Spectre might be able to engage him in a way the world around him simply failed.

They were all lies, of course.

But they got him what he wanted, and so Spectre saw no harm in it. The place Shoichi brought him to was calm, quiet- far enough from the city to avoid its noise but close enough that it was but a short drive away in close of emergency. It reminded Spectre vaguely of the place he’d just escaped. He hated it instantly.

The rooms were no better, shadowed things with curtains drawn and scattered with personal effects that the inhabitant obviously hadn’t set there in his own. _Attachments,_ wasted on people with no use for them.

And in the corner, daring not even to stand in the center of his own desolation-

 _Ah,_ Spectre thought, staring down at the boy known as _Kusanagi Jin_ with something that wasn’t quite pity.

 _What a pathetic thing._ Revulsion? Disdain? What, Spectre wondered, could he call that coldness sweeping through him at the sight of pure weakness?

He asked, looking over the curled-up boy, “Did it hurt for you? Was it painful?”

Jin, of course, said nothing in return. He couldn’t do much as stand to take his own revenge.

“Have you been so weak this entire time? Do you truly want to be so powerless?”

Pathetic, pathetic, completely and utterly _pathetic-_

A hand, clapped to his shoulder, jerking him back and forcing him to look up at a scowling face. Shoichi said, a warning not quite a snarl- “Back off.”

Spectre lifted his chin. “And if I refuse?”

“Then you’re going to regret it.”

Spectre could have smiled. There it was- the kernel of darkness that had called out for him nine years ago. The invitation made by a powerless boy who couldn’t have hoped to understand what Spectre had found. These brothers, a pair of weaklings both. If they were to face another hardship, if they were to start the war they intend, they’d be crushed. Nine years, and not a single step forwards. They’d never make it on their own.

“You need a shield, do you not?” Spectre asked, and Shoichi’s expression went soft with surprise. He didn’t know what to make of Spectre’s sudden question. “Then allow me to be your agent of revenge. The two of you will never manage it on your own. Or rather, you’ll never manage it on your own.”

“Watch how you phrase things,” Shoichi replied, not ungrateful. No, Spectre thought, quite to the contrary. Now that the Incident was over, that the glowing white walls were dead and his tree but a shadow of her former glory, he’d found it again- the only two people in the world who needed someone as detested as him.

 

And how disappointingly easy it was. Charisma duelists, Knights clamoring so impudently about the end of the world-

They could never understand the responsibility that had been placed upon his shoulders in those six months. To say that it had all been for naught- to erase the proof of his purpose and the Ignis that rode on his wrist- he simply couldn’t allow.

Longing for those days where someone had relied on him, craving the duels where he’d proved his strength in a world that would pass him over without a second thought. He carved it all into the burning mantle of revenge and blinded his opponents with them, one by one.

Even Revolver fell before him, fallen in a cage of his own creation.

 _Pitiful, pitiful,_ lost people playing meaningless games. And through it all, as he had always, Spectre _won._

 

They met for the first time on a bridge. Blue Angel had fallen; Spectre cared not for the details when it was clear the boy that had defeated her stood before him now, an impediment to his progress. This bridge was so narrow, thought Spectre idly- if only there was some way to use the marble wings upon his back to simply _fly._

This avatar was unfamiliar to him, indistinct and uninteresting. The Ignis on his wrist clamored so desperately about lost time as they draw to a halt; Spectre, for once, found himself prone to agree.

Said the stranger- “My name is Playmaker. And I can’t let you pass.”

“Someone unrelated as you should step aside,” Spectre said, sneering down at Playmaker. He’d already cared so little for those Knights and their blather about the _world_ that had never once given Spectre anything. He’d always enjoyed dueling, but the way opponents lined up before him as obstructions now was almost a chore.

“I’m not. And I can’t. I’ve been supporting Revolver since the moment he saved me ten years ago. I won’t step aside now,” he replied, his meaning clear. And oh, thought Spectre, how interesting a twist of fate. Here he’d begun to think that all the other children might have been _broken._

“So you enjoyed that Incident even more than I did? I admit, I hadn’t thought it possible.”

The gaze Playmaker turned on him then was cold. Pained. Spectre frowned- and here he’d just begun to think this familiar stranger a worthy opponent. “The Incident destroyed my life.”

“And it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“We should be on opposite sides.” Playmaker’s words fell just short of wistful. Whatever answer he had found, this was the path he had chosen.

If he hadn’t loved his tree so dearly- if she hadn’t been his reason to live for so many of those long, tedious years- then perhaps Spectre would have stood in Playmaker’s place now. Perhaps-

No.

Certainly that would have suited him better. Spectre frowned- how frustratingly understandable. “And tell me, Playmaker. Why aren’t you standing in my place, right now? You can’t possibly expect me to believe you’re helping the people who destroyed your life out of the goodness of your heart?”

What a laughable notion. And yet, as if to test him, Playmaker smiled. Soft. Resigned. Again a little pained, if Spectre cared to look close enough, to find the weaknesses he needed to tear this new enemy apart. “Revolver saved my life. I owe him everything. I won’t turn my back on him now.”

“As you’ve said,” Spectre returned dryly- so it would come to a fight after all. If he wanted scars to remember his defeat with, then Spectre would gladly provide.

“What about you?” Playmaker asked, turning the question back on him. “If you enjoyed that Incident, then why don’t you stand down and join us?”

“In your suicide mission? Forgive me if I’m not fond of the idea.”

“Just-“ Playmaker held out his hand, staring at Spectre with something that wasn’t quite a plea in his eyes. “hand over the Ignis. If you do that, no one has to die. Join us, and hunt the Cyberse. That’s enough for you, isn’t it?”

 _Perhaps,_ thought Spectre, _perhaps._

“Hey, hey… you’re not actually gonna turn on us, are you?” spoke the Ignis from his wrist, staring up at him with watering eyes. Spectre met it coldly- in that moment, the fate of everything rested in his palms.

He held no attachments.

(He wasn’t supposed to have held any.)

“Spectre… partner?”

Spectre clicked his tongue and looked away from that foolishly sentimental AI- they were hardly partners. They didn’t even _belong_ together. He met Playmaker’s gaze from across the field.

“Unfortunately,” Spectre replied, “I have someone relying on me to see this through. It would be rather discourteous to abandon them now.”

“You’re abandoning the purpose you found?”

“This is purpose, too.”

For a long moment, Playmaker let Spectre’s declaration stand between them. They were wasting time that couldn’t be wasted; Spectre lifted his duel disk. “If you insist on standing against me, then _stand._ If not, then let me pass. I have no reason to waste my time defeating you.”

At that, Playmaker finally readied himself for the fight. A burning resolve- perhaps he’d be a worthy opponent after all. “I told you. Revolver saved me. I won’t let you interfere with him. Not after that. Not when this is my chance to save him.”

“Ah,” said Spectre, a thin sort of smile stretching across his lips, “then won’t you please save me as well?”

“If that’s what you want,” Playmaker said, and stole the first turn out from under him. But it was of no matter. He was already assured of his victory. No fool speaking of _saviors_ could stop him now.

(Spectre fought, and Spectre won, and paid no mind to the boy prone against the pavement of the crumbling bridge. _Understanding_ meant nothing in the face of a time limit- and in the end, after all, he’d fallen for such a disappointingly obvious lie.)


	3. A Nonsensical Story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I'm still on an endless journey of collecting nonsense-_  
>  If only it would make you smile,  
> Then I'll lie as may times as it takes. 
> 
> _"Well, it's all a lie, though."_  
>  \- Scenario Liar

There was a boy who kept visiting Cafe Nagi. He was an unfamiliar one- over the last year, Spectre hadn’t so much kept tabs on the people who visited Cafe Nagi on the regular so much as he’d simply gotten used to the flow of them- the people who were obviously tourists, lured to the plaza by the promise of duels, the salarymen slipping in and out of the nearby office buildings at lunch and after work, taking the cheapest alternative to convenience store food, and a flow of strangers that had stories Spectre would never hear before they vanished, never to be seen again. 

But at some point this boy had shifted from the last to something  _ other- _ a calculated existence whose gaze liked to linger on him a moment too long and what Spectre imagined was a fair bit too knowing. So be it, Spectre thought. If someone had their suspicions, then he’d never had any intentions of hiding in the first place- just another thing he’d let that Shoichi talk him into. 

“Can I sit here?” the boy asked, and for the first time Spectre was forced to  _ look _ at him. They were about the same age, if Spectre had to guess, and the boy wore no uniform- though finals had perhaps passed for him the same way they had for Spectre. 

There were no other seats available; for once Spectre had no good reason to refuse- especially not with Shoichi watching him in the background. He’d always insisted on asking him about his nonexistent school life, as if his insistence that Spectre attend would one day eventually pay off.  Begrudgingly he nodded, and the boy sat down across the table from him.

For a moment they were silent, the boy taking a bite of his food, Relieved, Spectre returned to his laptop, reading up more on things of code, of passing interest- but only for a moment. The boy asked- “My name is Yusaku. What’s yours?”

Spectre wasn’t in the habit of giving his name to strangers. He was hardly in the habit of giving his name to  _ anyone. _

“I don’t have one,” he replied instead, hoping a briskly phrased refusal would convince him to hurry up and leave. No one, after all, liked to be so blatantly shunned. 

“You do,” said Yusaku, and Spectre looked up to glare at him. Their eyes met- Spectre’s hostile, Yusaku’s probing- and with clarity sudden and complete, Spectre realized that he’d seen them before. Just once, perhaps a hint of them twice. And the moment he realized was the moment it was over.

He’d given a reaction; Playmaker had already won. There was the faintest hint of a smile on his lips when he said, lowly under the chatter of a passing family- “Spectre.”

So despite Shoichi’s insistence on him altering his avatar, he’d been found after all. Not that it particularly concerned  _ him, _ but nothing good would come of those brothers finding themselves revealed. 

“I have no use for Revolver’s pet dog.”

“I’m not his  _ pet,” _ Yusaku replied, not quite a snarl. Certainly defensive. He’d known that would hit a nerve- no one fought to the death for someone they weren’t blindly loyal to. But if not master and servant, then what  _ had _ they been, Spectre wondered idly.  _ Friends? _ He scoffed at the thought.

“No. You can’t be a pet if your master’s run away, now can you?”

Yusaku’s expression flashed into something quite wounded, just for a moment- a trace of lonely abandonment in the widening of his eyes. Spectre knew just how to tell, and knew just what would finish him- “You’re just a stray that wasn’t important enough to care about when it was time to pick up and leave.”

“I’m wasting my time,” Yusaku said, expression cold as Spectre had ever seen, and stood with a clatter. He gathered us his food in one swift motion, tucking it up in his arms and stepping off without a backwards glance.

Spectre watched him go, feeling something like satisfaction- but not quite. There was an odd edge to it, in his days again left wandering without purpose. 

_ Uneasy. Floating. _ Spectre wasn’t certain that he liked it at all.

* * *

Ryoken had left them behind.

Spectre had thrown that simple fact in his face and Yusaku had been powerless to refute it, because Ryoken had  _ left them behind.  _ Yusaku knew that he would be back, knew it unwaveringly as he knew the fact of his own existence- that he’d been saved that day, twice over. And he knew it just as well as the fact that Ryoken had fought Spectre on his own, that day, and in the moment he’d needed reassurance, needed  _ saving _ the most, Yusaku hadn’t been there for him.

He’d been powerless, asleep in the darkness that had terrified him same as the unending light that he’d slowly been moving forwards from.

Yusaku wasn’t entirely sure if he’d ever forgive himself for that. 

But in the days without purpose, with family all scattered to the winds and without so much as a word of guidance, Yusaku would have to fend for himself. 

He took a deep breath and steadied himself. He’d done it once before, and he could do it again. Money was no issue, and whatever couldn’t be solved with that could be solved with a neat bit of hacking. First, he thought, came food. Everything else would follow.

And  _ food  _ brought him here, to the Cafe whose owners had thrown his life into disarray.

He had no reason to keep going back. There was no longer any tactical advantage to trying to eavesdrop on Spectre and his accomplice, nor was there any need for Yusaku to actually get the food- not when pre-made meals were already a constant. He’d grown too used to the Knight’s cooking, had never learned for himself. He’d never realized that would one day become a problem.

But he still came back, because Spectre had looked at him and asked to be saved. It had been mocking; Yusaku understood that much. 

But he’d still asked. 

And Yusaku didn’t know-  _ couldn’t know- _ anything of his story other than what Ryoken had left behind, data and documents on a boy with no family to speak of who’d vanished without a trace a year ago. He had scraps of a life reduced down to statistics and the testimony of the boy himself, and nothing else to base his conclusions off of, but his instincts told him to trust in this- 

Nothing he’d ever said had been a lie. Not entirely, not at the beating heart of them. 

 

“You can’t possibly be here again,” Spectre said, glancing up at him from his book with a look of such utter apathy that Yusaku almost wondered if there was a point to this at all. 

Yusaku didn’t ask to sit down, this time, knowing he’d only be refused. Instead he simply pulled out the chair and sat in it, daring Spectre to try and stop him. Surprisingly enough, he didn’t- perhaps just to waste Yusaku’s time, though Yusaku would like to think there was something a little more genuine beneath it all.

“What are you reading?” Yusaku asked, because that seemed harmless enough. Their first conversation had escalated too quickly, had been too fast to cut to the bone. He wasn’t here to pick a fight, and he wouldn’t stand to be insulted again.

And yet even something as mundane as that had Spectre clicking his tongue and looking over his own book with distaste. “Something I was given for school. Pointless.”

_ Then why are you still reading it? _ Yusaku didn’t ask. Instead, the more neutral, the question whose answer he was much more interested in hearing- “You go to school?”

“Went.” Said with utter disinterest, as with everything else that seemed to pass through Spectre’s lips. 

“How was it? I’ve never been.”

Spectre blinked. The second half of his question, at least, seemed to pull some sort of reaction. “Dreadfully dull. An exercise in shunning those that don’t belong. You’d find it as suffocating as I do, surely.”

Yusaku gave a half-hearted shrug, not quite meeting Spectre’s eyes with his reply. “I still wanted to try going. Just once. The two of us weren’t allowed.”

“Despite your more foolish tendencies, you don’t seem like an idiot. What could  _ school  _ possibly do for you?” Spectre returned, and Yusaku shifted in his seat. Any answer he could give suddenly seemed so inadequate- or rather, they’d always seemed like such small wishes in the face of their grand purpose. It was why he’d never dared put voice to them before.

But now things were different- were  _ over. _ Maybe. Potentially. Yusaku wasn’t sure, not with Ryoken still missing, with message after message left unreplied to on his phone. But he could say now that they were at a ceasefire, if nothing else.

Yusaku shrugged. “A normal life? With friends and-“

“Friends,” Spectre scoffed, and Yusaku thought he’d never felt such a flash of pitying irritation in his life, twin flashes like anger and remorse- though not nearly as strong. When they faded they left him not shaken, but simply a bit hollow. He wasn’t sure for which one of them.

“Don’t you have friends? At least one?”

Spectre glanced back at Kusanagi working at Cafe Nagi, blissfully unaware of the conversation taking place at the nearest table. His gaze lingered a while, but then Spectre shook his head. “No. I don’t need to waste my time on that. I protect them, he assists me, and that’s all.”

He way Spectre described it felt dry as a business transaction. Impersonal as it was, Yusaku thought that it kind of sounded like friendship.

He only had one, and they hadn’t been made in the usual circumstances, so he couldn’t say for certain- but that sounded just like what Yusaku thought friendship should be.

_ What happened, _ Yusaku thought, trying to leer into Spectre the same way Spectre had done to him,  _ that you can’t recognize that? _

* * *

Yusaku liked to talk- or, more accurately, he seemed to like to hear  _ Spectre  _ talk, and in the peaceful days that were drawing themselves dull, Spectre found himself indulging. He liked stories of school, and so Spectre regaled him with talk of class trips, of incidents he’d borne distant witness to. The talk of exclusion, he thought, was unnecessary. Surely it was something that he already understood, and surely it was something he didn’t need to know Spectre had felt in turn. They’d come dangerously close to a tipping point, in that duel- one they still hovered on now, slipping further off balance with every day that passed. Spectre had no intention of finding out what lie in wait at the bottom.

“I’m sure this should be a dull story, for you,” Spectre said, lifting a brow in invitation for Yusaku to agree. But Yusaku only shook his head.

“I’ve never been there.”

“You’ve never-“ Spectre cut himself off; repetition out of incredulity was something he’d never allow himself. He lost too much of the upper hand, that way, and just because Yusaku seemed fond of him now meant nothing in the long run. He continued instead, “That’s ridiculous. If you’ve never done something as simple as  _ that, _ then I’ll take you there myself.”

“Really?” He’d made the offer somewhat without thinking- only that here was another pitiful thing gathered before him. He might as well have been starting a collection. But the lilt of Yusaku’s question had been hopeful. Tentative, like a joke to hide the fact he’d thought it might have been a promise.

Spectre could crush him then, if he wanted. He’d just been handed the opportunity on a silver platter. Yusaku might even come  _ back. _

He considered his words and said, enunciating slow and clear- “Yes. If you’d like.”

Yusaku blinked fast, trying and failing to clear the surprise from his eyes- then nodded, then again. “Yeah. I would, thanks.”

So then it was decided, Spectre thought. Perhaps this time it would have worth.

 

Den City’s aquarium was somewhat renowned in this area of the country given its quick access to the sea and proximity to urban areas; Spectre couldn’t count the amount of times he’d been shoved on a bus and been told to see the same sights 

At least, thought Spectre, it had been a change of scenery on the days he hadn’t been able to escape to the forest he so loved, a new place to wander off on his own, slipping away from watchful eyes with too many children to keep track of like the ghosts from which he’d chosen his namesake. In those old days, he’d wandered through the halls and glass tunnels, watching animals swim through the waters overhead and wonderingly idly what would happen if the glass caved in over their heads.

The magic of it had long since worn off- to Spectre it was only another place in the world that simply  _ was- _ but to Yusaku, it was clearly something new. Yusaku didn’t emote, but his eyes shone with a certain anticipation, a little childlike- raised the way he was, Spectre wondered if he’d had a  _ childhood _ to speak of at all. He couldn’t help but doubt. Spectre would speak no praises of the orphanage, but it at least allowed him time with his mother, to carve out a space for himself in the time he’d had. From the few things Yusaku had been willing to tell him, it didn’t seem like Yusaku had lived much of a life outside of Hanoi at all.

They made their way together through from the entryway, into the first of the display halls with tanks that ran the length of the walls, a substantial way up their height. The fish inside shone with scales in a rainbow of colors, flicking through the clear water and dancing around the fins of docile sharks, looping around turtle shells, dancing into the reeds below.

Yusaku made his way towards the front of the gathered crowd, leaving Spectre to follow him a ways back, clinging close to the wall- he’d never liked the press of people, though it seemed Yusaku had no such reservations. Still, noticing something about Spectre he hadn’t meant to reveal, Yusaku stayed close to the edge of the tank. Spectre was just a sliver too unnerved to be grateful. 

For a long while Yusaku stood there, watching entranced as the animals swam their usual circles. Spectre crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall, watching Yusaku forget himself and try to reach out, only to bump fingers against the glass. 

“They’re caged,” Yusaku said, a strange tone in his voice- not nervous, but not at ease, thinking thoughts far too kind for someone who’d nearly just succeeded in ending the network and causing casualties whose numbers would become statistics far faster than they stayed a list of names.

Perhaps, thought Spectre, there was a very good reason that no one had thought to bring Yusaku to the aquarium- or rather, perhaps there had been quite a lot of thought as to why  _ not _ to bring him _. _

“They’re given plenty of room.” He had no idea if it was true or not, but the last thing Spectre needed was for Yusaku to crumble on him, too. He was only just growing able to handle Jin and his fragile recovery. 

“But they can’t escape.”

“No,” Spectre replied, “they can’t. Though if it makes you feel any better, most of these animals were rescued. They wouldn’t have survived out in the wild.”

Not entirely true, but better than saying that the rest had been born in captivity and would die there, too. Insulting someone when they were down, Spectre was beginning to realize, an unpleasant curl twisting through his stomach, lurching up through his chest, wasn’t nearly as satisfying as once it had been.

“Saved by being caged.” Yusaku’s tone was flat, and Spectre knew- the Incident had never saved Yusaku- perhaps the culprits had, but never the cage. That, he supposed, was the difference between them. 

Letting a moment like this rest went against every instinct Spectre had. To lash out, to lord over his victories before anyone else could think of becoming his enemy. The silence was wrong; he couldn’t let it sit. And yet-

“For some,” he said, “it's much better than the alternative.”

Yusaku had the decency not to point out what the alternatives could have been. They’d spoken on it once; to return to it now would do nothing save throw them back to where they’d been then.

“Do you think they’d survive? If they were all set free.” Yusaku didn’t look at him when he asked the question- in the glass, Spectre wondered if he was seeing the fish, or simply his own reflection.

He didn’t know. Quietly, a passing thought in the back of his mind, Spectre still wondered if they’d ever really left. Instead of an answer, the thing that left Spectre’s mouth was, impulsively,  _ foolishly- _ “Otters.”

Yusaku blinked at him. “Otters?”

“Let’s go see the otters,” Spectre elaborated, tilting his head towards the cartoon otter painted on a wall sign. “They have more space.”

Yusaku followed his gaze, then finally turned away from the glass tank. He returned to Spectre’s side with a brief nod. “That’s good.”

“Yes,” said Spectre, setting them off down the hall, weaving their way together through the crowd, “it is.”

And so they went to see the otters. 

 

He hadn’t planned it, but they made it just in time to see the show. Their seats were rather terrible, the two of them crammed together in tight plastic folding chairs at the very edge of the crowd, angled so that they had to crane their necks for even a glimpse of what was happening up in the otter environment. They’d have done better standing at the back of the disorderly rows, Spectre thought as the show began. But it was too late now. They’d simply have to manage.

The otters, Spectre quickly realized, were clever little creatures. Spectre wasn’t sure what to compare them to, exactly, but they had an energy about them, childlike and eager to please. A year ago, he wouldn’t have spared them a second glance. But this time he watched as each of them ran back to their trainers for a treat after every well-practiced trick, as their coats gleamed healthy beneath the low spotlights, as they chattered delighted beneath the applause of the crowd as the show ended.

_ Do you think they’d survive? _

A pointless question. Here, they thrived- and that, Spectre thought, was all he’d needed to know.  

Around them the crowd began to rise; Yusaku stayed seated a while longer as people brushed past far too close for Spectre’s liking, knocking against their knees with empty apologies and not so much as a second glance.

“Hey,” Yusaku said, and it took Spectre just a moment to realize that Yusaku was addressing him. “Thanks. For this.”

Spectre turned his head from the vanishing otters, back to Yusaku-

And Yusaku was smiling. For perhaps- no, Spectre was sure of it, he would have remembered something so striking- for the first time, Yusaku was smiling.

Because of him.

He had no attachments. In exchange for a means, a reason to live, he’d taken on a role of avenger, of protector. That was all there was to it.

But for the boy with the twisted heart, who’d failed in his duties trying to save the enemy he should have hated- that he still should have despised-

For one of the Lost ones who’d still decided to stand and fight, to  _ survive- _

Perhaps. He doubted, but perhaps.

* * *

 

It was a terrible idea, one to which he had no right. And yet. 

The rain crashed over them halfway down the aquarium steps, not a gradual increase but a sudden downpour timed with a great crack of thunder. Neither of them had brought an umbrella- Yusaku hadn’t so much as thought to check the forecast before they’d left that morning.

“Quickly,” Spectre said, doubling his pace, intent on leaving Yusaku behind if he so had to as he made his way fast towards the bus stop down the street. But Yusaku wouldn’t let him do that. Steps slashing over the pavement, keeping an even pace, picking up speed with every step in hectic time.

But even at their best, it wasn’t enough to keep from getting drenched. As they slipped beneath the shelter of the covered bus stop, Yusaku pulled at the sleeve of his shirt, now plastered wet to his skin. They still had a while yet until the next bus, but like this, it wouldn’t be a pleasant ride.

Beside him Spectre’s bangs dripped with the excess water, and he wrang them out loosely with a finger, frowning as he tucked a few strands back behind his ear. Yusaku watched him do it, and if Spectre cared, he didn’t say a word.

“Why did you agree to bring me here?” Yusaku found himself asking, and Spectre spared him a passing glance, irritation at his drenched clothes fading slightly as he considered Yusaku’s question.

When he spoke, his words were proper, carefully chosen. “Largely because you paid for the tickets.”

Yusaku didn’t snort, but he did very nearly roll his eyes. But only very nearly- now wasn’t the time for that. Not when he still had one question left to ask. “And the rest?”

“I wonder.” Spectre faced his way as he said it, expression as mysterious as ever, unreadable as he made it when he wanted Yusaku to draw his own conclusions from whatever bit of nonsense he’d said- but Yusaku already knew.

He’d been so lonely. Yusaku hardly knew how he’d survived. So now, if Yusaku could just-

It was so easy to cross the distance between them. To put a hand on Spectre’s shoulder, to tilt his head up, to close that last little bit of space for just a moment, a brush of lips against lips Yusaku didn’t quite believe would actually happen until he’d already pulled away and dropped his hand back to his side. He lifted his head to again meet Spectre’s probing gaze. Whatever he was expecting, he didn’t find it there.

“Did you have a reason for that?” Spectre asked, and if Yusaku didn’t know any better, he’d say it was teasing. But he did- Spectre was the type to goad and prod, but never to tease. The things they knew about each other were still too little; it was probably too much to hope that this was a side of Spectre he’d shown only to him.

“What do you think?” Yusaku returned, and Spectre glared at him for his troubles. 

“Certainly not pity, I hope,” said Spectre, deceivingly bland- a placid tone that hid the barbs beneath. 

“Not pity,” Yusaku replied, and met Spectre’s eyes with an affirmation, an unspoken question.

They’d both had something end. In Yusaku’s case, not by choice- he’d wanted to fight until the end, to succeed in protecting Ryoken, to finally realize what they’d been chasing all their lives. He still didn’t know about Spectre and all the pieces he’d left missing from his stories. But, if Spectre allowed it- if Spectre would tell him- they could choose to start something new. 

Just for a while- just for now. 

Yusaku thought that might just be enough to save someone who hadn’t realized they still wanted someone to reach out..

* * *

The months changed in that strange sort of haze, turning heavy into the humid heat of early August, the promise of a new semester hanging on the horizon- much to Spectre’s distaste. It was in the early days of August that Spectre first got the idea, recalling a conversation of early June.

It was a fair amount to ask of Kusanagi on such short notice, and for one of their former enemies, at that- but Spectre thought he was owed this much at least. Provided that Yusaku was amenable, of course. 

But Spectre thought he would be. That in doing this, Yusaku would smile again, evidence of payment for a debt that Spectre had never accumulated.

Today was one of those not-so-rare days where Yusaku was already waiting for him- sometime in those three months it had become rather customary for Yusaku to come by more days than not. He sat on his side of the table, and he waved back to Kusanagi for his usual order as Yusaku pushed over the last of his fries.

And, on an impulse, Spectre decided to make a little game of it. Yusaku had become quite adept at reading into what Spectre meant between his half-truths and leading comments, past the point of it being an annoyance and far more into a sort of banter Spectre was slowly becoming accustomed to. The only question was how long it would take him.

Spectre pushed the last few of Yusaku’s fries back to him with one hand, and set a small book atop the table with the other. Yusaku’s gaze went straight to it, squinting in mild confusion.

“I thought you finished that?” Yusaku asked, a question only out of courtesy. 

He had, of course, finished the book months ago. Yusaku had been his victim of choice when it had come to his complaints about the triteness of the metaphor, the drag of the prose.

“Unfortunately,” Spectre said, “I need to review it before the next semester starts. I have no intention of reading it again, though.”

“That doesn’t seem helpful, then.” 

Blunt as always. Spectre huffed at him, tapping a finger stop its cover. “I thought you might read it and refresh my memory for me.”

“You said it was pretentious nonsense. Why would I want to read it?” Yusaku replied, sending him a suspicious look, not quite exasperated- one that meant he knew Spectre remembered just how often he’d complained of it, and only saw a few ways this conversation could still end.

Catching on, then, Spectre thought, and decided to give up the game. “It is. Unfortunately, it’s also required.”

Yusaku blinked. “Are you asking-“

But on the table between then Yusaku’s phone suddenly buzzed- jarring the both of them. Though Yusaku always had it with him, never before had he ever heard it ring, never seen Yusaku replying to a message that wasn’t his own. 

Yusaku darted out a hand, snatching his phone from the table and checking the notification with a sort of haste Spectre almost hadn’t realized him capable of. As he read his manner changed in an instant; Spectre recognized it as an old sort of tension that he’d hardly noticed had been missing.

The lost boy with the twisted heart, finally found purpose again.

“You’ll go, of course,” Spectre said, and it wasn’t a question. They both knew this day was coming- never had they tried to pretend otherwise. But still. Spectre had thought these pleasantly sluggish days might last a little while longer.

“Yeah,” Yusaku said, and when he looked up to meet Spectre’s gaze his eyes were clear. “The next time we’ll meet, we’ll probably be enemies.”

“Yes,” Spectre replied, a dry acknowledgement. He had no grudges left against Hanoi, but it seemed too kind that their paths wouldn’t cross again. Too kind that Kogami Ryoken could crawl out from his father’s shadow, the delusions that had been his creed a decade. And yet something about it seemed a little melancholy. When he’d begun to care, though, Spectre couldn’t say.

“Do we have to be?”

“Don’t ask foolish questions you already know the answers to. You have your family. I presume you’re going to get them? Taki Kyoko, at least, is still incarcerated.”

Yusaku nodded. A darkness flashed across his expression, anger at the very thought. Incomprehensible as he still thought it, Spectre couldn’t deny its beauty. “Then go.”

“After lunch?” Yusaku asked, gaze slipping over Spectre’s shoulder, towards the swing of Cafe Nagi opening its doors.

“Don’t waste your time,” Spectre said, and waved him away with a dismissive hand. “You have better places to be than here.”

Yusaku didn’t deny it. But still he didn’t stand. He said, voice low enough not to carry back to Kusanagi- “So this-“

“If you’re worried about losing it,” Spectre said, “don’t be.”

It wasn’t a promise that it wouldn’t be gone. Surely, thought Spectre, after all this time, Yusaku understood. Spectre had never been the person that meant most to Yusaku. This was simply reassurance that he’d always known that. 

“We probably won’t meet for a while,” Yusaku said, in a wistful sort of tone that Spectre wasn’t sure was supposed to indicate an excuse or a fact.

“I’ll be fine. I assure you, I did well enough for myself before you came along.”

Yusaku shook his head, and Spectre was sure he only did it to hide a roll of his eyes. “That wasn’t what I meant.”  

“You’ll also be fine, I’m sure,” Spectre said, much more flippantly, this time.

“You really can’t take a hint, can you?” asked Yusaku, leaning slightly over the table, resting his elbows on the edge to gain that little bit of edge over Spectre. 

“WIll you please just  _ leave?” _ Spectre asked, shooting Yusaku an exasperated glance- but he couldn’t stop the fondness that seeped through as Yusaku shot him a small, equally exasperated smile. 

And finally,  _ finally _ did Yusaku stand. 

“Fine,” he said, picking up his bag and tucking his chair back under the table- then, over his shoulder as he took the first step- “See you sometime.”

Spectre huffed. What a fittingly ambiguous parting for a fittingly ambiguous relationship. He echoed, not unkindly- “Sometime.”

And, as Shoichi made his way to the table, the smell of hot dogs and fries wafting down from his arms, Yusaku turned his back and left.

“Yusaku’s gone already?” Shoichi asked, setting Spectre’s food down before him, watching Yusaku retreat from the plaza, phone in hand and steps fast across the pavement.

“He may be gone for a while,” Spectre replied, “and we may not be on speaking terms the next time we meet.”

Shoichi’s expression fell- not threatening, Spectre realized, but protective- fearsomely so. “If they try anything again…”

“Then we’ll do what we have to,” Spectre replied, and watched as Yusaku turned down the street and out of sight, waving his way fast towards home and the people he’d made it with. 

The interlude was over; once again the reasons they’d made it this far had come to sweep them up again. But this too, thought Spectre, turning towards what remained, might be something of worth.

  
(And if something remained after it all came to an end again- even if it didn’t, Spectre thought, at least, for a while, it had  _ lived.) _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES I did in fact use a hypmic song as the main image song for a vrains piece (crossing the fandom streams lol)... It really feels like a very... Spectre song though


End file.
